HyMotion and Prius Life Expectancy

From Venus Flytrap, DJ at WKRP in Cincinnati:

Venus: "I can give you the basics of the atom in two minutes. You'll understand it perfectly and remember if for months."
Arnold: "Two minutes. You're crazy, you know that?"
Venus: "If I can teach you about the atom in two minutes, will you go back to school and finish out the year? You're a betting man, how about it Arnold? How about it, huh?"
Arnold: "Yeah, yeah. OK, sure."
Venus: "I've got your word?"
Arnold: "Yeah, you've got my word and two minutes."

Venus: Getting supplies, clearing space and walking to a blank wall. "There are three gangs on the street, right?"
Arnold: Lounging on some supplies. "Yeah, yeah, three gangs."
Venus: "And this..." Points to the blank wall "...this right here is the territory." Draws a big circle. "Now here is the neighborhood. Got that?"
Arnold: "Yeah"
Venus: "And right in the middle of this neighborhood is a gang called the new boys." Draws a small capital N in the center.
Arnold: "Yeah. The new boys. Good name."
Venus: "OK." Points to the outer circle. "Out here on the outside of the neighborhood, on the edge of the neighborhood, is another gang. You know these are real negative dudes, really negative. Right?"
Arnold: "Right, right."
Venus: "Now they call themselves the elected ones." Draws a small capital E on the circle at about 1 o'clock.
Arnold: "All right, the elected ones."
Venus: "You got that? Really negative. They don't like nothing." Runs his hand around the circle several times and draws another concentric circle outside it. "Now they're all the time out here circling around the neighborhood, just circling, checking out the new boys." Taps the N in the center. "Now the new boys see this." Runs his hand between the N and E several times. "So they make a deal with another, another gang. A gang of very happy go lucky guys. They call themselves the pros. The pros." Draws a small capital P next to the N in the center. "Now the pros are very positive cats. They've got all the good looking women, right?"
Arnold: "Yeah!"
Venus: "Right." Laughs. "Now, the pros and elected ones, they hate each other. So much so that they keep the same number of members. Just in case. You dig?"
Arnold: "Yeah."
Venus: Starts some rapid fire questions. "So if I've got ten elected ones, how many pros do I have?"
Arnold: "Ten."
Venus: "All right. Now how many gangs do I have?"
Arnold: "Three, the new boys, elected ones and the pros."
Venus: Points to the circle. "Who's here?"
Arnold: "The elected ones."
Venus: "Now, what are they? Negative?"
Arnold: "Yeah."
Venus: All right. Now who's positive?"
Arnold: "The pros and you're running out of time."
Venus: "You see right here?" Points to the P and N area. "The pros and the new boys, they call their hangout the nucleus." Draws a small circle around the P and N. "Yeah. Now that's a real tough word. It's Latin. But I think it's Swahili and it means center."
Arnold: "Yeah. What is it?"
Venus: "It's nucleus. Say it!"
Arnold: "Nucleus. Is that really African?"
Venus: "Say it!"
Arnold: "Nucleus."
Venus: "You got it?"
Arnold: "Yeah."
Venus: "All right. Give you another Swahili word. It's, ah, it's tron. It means dude."
Arnold "Yeah, tron. Dude."
Venus: All these gangs like that name so well that they all decide to use it. The pros right here in the middle start calling themselves the protons. And the new boys, well they start calling themselves the neutrons. And out here on the edge, the elected ones, they start calling themselves the elect...?"
Arnold: "The electrons. The protons and the neutrons."
Venus: Circling his hand over the empty area between the center and outer circles. "And all this here is the neighborhood. This is block after block of nothing. You understand block after block of nothing don't you?"
Arnold: "Yeah, yeah, I know all about that and your time is up professor DJ."
Venus: Dusting his hands and walking away from the wall. "Good. I was finished anyway. Now you go on back to school man."
Arnold: School? Man, all I know about is a bunch of damn gangs that live in a round neighborhood."
Venus: "Arnold! that's the atom! That's it man! That's it." Points to the center and starts rapid fire questions again. "What's this right here?"
Arnold: "Protons and neutrons."
Venus: Points to the little circle. "And they call this what?"
Arnold: "Nucleus."
Venus: Points to the E. "All right, what are these guys up here?"
Arnold: "Electrons."
Venus: "Are they positive or negative?"
Arnold: "Negative."
Venus: "And how do they move?"
Arnold: "Round and round."
Venus: "And if I've got two of them, how many protons do I have?" Points to the center.
Arnold: "Two."
Venus: "Now, are protons positive or negative?"
Arnold: "Positive."
Venus: Points to the empty area. "What's all this right here?"
Arnold: "Ah, that's the neighborhood."
Venus: "Which is?"
Arnold: "Nothing."
Venus: "You've got it man. You got an A."

 

I'm not really sure how much it costs to manufacture the LiIon batteries, but from what I have seen it isn't possible for anybody to buy them at $200/kWh. There are also additional costs for companies besides the manufacturing cost of the individual item too.

I'm not sure when Mr. Hermance said this, but I read, "Toyota's Hermance insists that, barring a spectacular breakthrough in battery chemistry, the cost of nickel-metal hydride batteries will remain around $1100/kWh for the foreseeable future."

It is my understanding that LiIon batteries are even more expensive.

 

I follow your logic.. but the difference between the first green bar "70%" and the first pink bar"45% (where switched EV takes you) is a difference of 25%.

If you just let the computer run things without switched EV... its even less... possibly as low as 20% or so... seems pretty rediculous... no wonder the batteries last so long... we're not using them!

Based on your figures, I understand your logic.. thanks for providing them.

So giving the benifit of a doubt.. lets use the 25% figure.
1.3 kw X 25% leaves about .325kwh of actually usable battery. So your right if all these figures are correct.

So if we can get one mile out of .325kwh, it would stand to reason that 5.0kwh would get us 15 miles, but no more. (5 / .325 = 15.38 miles)

Thats a respectable amount of miles, but not enough... unless you can plug in at work too.

If they would give us the 12.5kwh battery they are giving the Ford rigs (But how much money?) that would effectively give us up to 35 miles or so!

But then we have five main problems....
1. Price?
2. Since the batteries are shaped differently, we would have to figure where to mount them? That could be altered too?... the whole secret storage area could hold batteries?
3. Would the planetary gears run out of lubrication since the ICE is not engaged? "Toyota could fix that easy enough"
4. And of course having to maintain the low speeds would stink... occasionally bouncing over would lubricate the planetary gears at least?
5. *If the main charging system is disengaged while this is engaged, would that mean we would lose regen abilities while this LiIon battery was engaged?
*Would it never be able to be charged unless we plug it in?
*I agree it would be foolish to charge it with gasoline, but our present battery gets full quite easy... it would be a shame not to be able to use the extra storage capacity for large regen times like coming down a mountain.
Esp if we were using the LiIon battery to power the car, then it would a shame to not get some of that power back as we came down a hill, or when coasting, or braking..... thats wasted power!

And I agree with Daniel.. its a bit unnerving to spend this big money if Toyota is doing the same thing and will come out with a much more reasonable price with the next upgrade or package.

I doubt upgrade kits to convert existing system will be instigated by Toyota unless batteries are very plentifle. They would rather sell a whole new car for us to get the upgrade!

All in all at this point its awesome they are working on it.. but I somehow feel we are the beta testers paying "big buck prices" for a unfinished product?

I think they need to test it more or charge much less.

 

Impact of what? Of an unlimited supply of electrons? I guess it means the Prius will last forever.